The Pensive
by TheLucky666
Summary: A mysterious book containing fragments from the lives of Hogwarts' Founders published by an even more mysterious author. He starts it with a confusing preface whose purpose is unclear... SLASH a.k.a. M/M
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is in any way connected to Harry Potter nor do I gain any profit from writing this. - ore-sama, TheLucky666

Description: A mysterious book containing fragments from the lives of Hogwarts' Founders (mainly Slytherin & Gryffindor) published by an even more mysterious author. He starts it with a confusing preface whose purpose is unclear. How he acquired the facts needed for writing this story is another mystery... The emphasis is on Syltherin's character & his relationship with people around him, especially Godric Gryffindor. (Or so I hope it will be)

Slash a.k.a. Yaoi? But, of course!

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><p><em>Once upon a time, there were four friends, all skilled in the Arts of Magic. They decided not to hold the knowledge for themselves, but to pass it on the following generations<em>_ of magicians. Their names were: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. _

_Together they founded Hogwarts, the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And all was well._

_But, soon a problem came to be. Slytherin, the most wicked of the four, claimed that the students of the school are all to be pure-blooded wizards. Unable to get the others to support his views, he betrayed the other four and left the school._

Or that's how the story goes.

_Sometimes it happens that the Heavens decide to present__ the World with a special man. He is then gifted Beauty and Intelligence, as well as Love and Tenderness in his heart. _

_But, such a person is__ not something that is suited to grow that easily among the others. It's the price that comes with his Virtue._

_His knowledge forces him to stare straight into the blackest pits of human soul. Under the influence of what he sees, he soon forgets hope and grows afraid of people. Afraid of people, he retires to his own company, and without a friend to utter a word to, he goes mad._

_And of the childlike purity he once had remains nothing but dark and twisted ego sodden in the stagnation of the Sins. _

_But, after all, it's just another story of how somebody turned evil._

Or that's how they've told me.

Well, if I am to speak the truth, and truth only, (which is the virtue of a good historian) I'll have to tell you something.

All of you who came to me looking for a carefully shaped story, that respects the three classical rules of storytelling, most definitely made a miss. To me are, alas!, known only fragments, so I can only tell you what I know. And, Merlin's beard, I'll do it right!

But, in the end everything's relative and I won't make any promises.

Except one!

History is written by the winners.

So, don't trust me now and here. Let the characters speak the Truth for themselves.

After all, the true story is different to everybody.

Speaking of that, have you heard of these stories before? No?

Now that you have heard them, allow me to ask you:

How much of them is true?

The Truth is very simple. As long as there is white of the paper, both lies and the Truth will be written.

- The Author

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><p>Phew! The prologue is finally on. I really have to thank XxEliza-JanexX for helping me out, beta-ing with me and inspiring me. Thanks a lot, sis!<p> 


	2. Ch 1: Hero on the road

YAAAA-TAAAAAA! Chapter #2 is up (a.k.a. Chapter 1, because the first one was a prologue)! Sorry for the wait!

I really couldn't bring myself to write this, since my mind is all over Bleach now... And other eastern stuff...

Btw, I don't know if you guys noticed, but I want to point out a few mistakes from before.

#1: The title is misspelled. It should be 'Pensieve', not 'Pensive' (according to HP Wiki, that is; spell-check disagrees) , but I won't fix that because I don't want to lose the reviews. =P

#2: There's a mathematical mistake in last chapter. Apparently, I don't know that when you have 4 Founders, and 1 leaves them, you're left with 3 Founders, and not 4 as I have written. XP

Also: This is NOT beta'd. Sorry, Eliza, I was impatient. -/- Please, scold me if you wish!

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Hero on the road<strong>

The battle is over!

The soldiers are finally free to return to their homes. Fathers and mothers all over the land can now be at ease for their sons will soon be next to them once more. Dinner will be eaten and stories will be told!

Some, as it's always the case with wars, will not be as lucky as the others. Those mothers and fathers will cry horribly when their sons arrive at their doorstep – carried by their comrades, with their family's shield resting in their hands.

Many will let their cries echo through the air as those three words crash the illusion their hope created – I am sorry.

But, that is not the subject of our interest.

One brown horse emerged from the crowd of the lucky ones and carried it's rider hastily in a direction different from his home. The afternoon sun glanced through the thick branches of forest's trees at the horse and his rider, letting it's rays spray in collision with the knight's armor, thus making him squint in order to see his path. But, no matter, he was in hurry.

Godric Gryffindor was the name of the man in hurry. Godric, the son of the noble family of Gryffindor, the pride of The Royal Academy of Magic and the most famous man of The Royal Guard's Magic Division.

And he's quite a catch, if it's alright to believe the ladies. With his thick, chestnut colored mane of hair, his brown eyes that knew to be both fearsome and kind, and a tough body that was nearly two meters tall, he was the very embodiment of his family's crest – a lion; in every way you looked at him. Yet he was barely an adult! Kids these days! They grow like the magic beanstalk.

His father once said the same thing, long time ago, just hours before the moment that gave a significant twist to their destinies. A moment when they met a person, then still a skinny child, that later on changed the history of the World.

The very same person Godric was now so eager to see.

Having crossed a long way, which included a forest, a wide area of grasslands and a village, he steered his horse in yet another forest, this time much more darker and swampy in nature. The trees seemed a lot darker and were covered in moss. He had to go over a few fallen trunks, and the road was now nowhere to be seen. But, that did not worry him at all. He knew the way like a back of his hand.

Gradually, the sky from above was disappearing, hidden among the tree branches. Soon it seemed like it was the middle of the night. The ground was becoming more and more swampy, until it turned into a large portion of muddy water, slightly green in colour and adorned with already wilted black trees, with moss as a substitute for their nonexistent leaves. A few tuberous long sticks were bulging from the water in different places. Their tips were skewered into skull-shaped lamps which emitted sick green light.

The highest concentration of those nasty little things was in the middle of that wonderful scenery where a sort of a little island was placed. It bore a small house that perfectly fitted it's surroundings. It too was black and covered in green moss. A sort of a dock was used as a bridge between the mainland and the little island. Godric felt slightly worried when the dock creaked under the hooves of his horse. The annoying feeling that something will pop out of the dirty water wasn't helping either. Especially, because he knew it was full of Inferi.

As if he jinxed himself!

Suddenly, a horde of bony hands sprang out of the water and started searching aimlessly for the intruders. Godric's horse let out a panicked neigh and tried to go back, but his master started pushing him to go forward. Holding the reins with one hand and trying to reach his wand with the other, Godric kept repeating himself not to panic. At the back of his mind it occurred to him that he should have had prepared his wand for this situation earlier, but having used this path for a very long time now, one would thought that his damned friend would thought of not having the Inferi on stand-by.

And now they have started to emerge from the waters determined to give their best to drag down both the horse and his rider. Or so it seemed. They had no will of their own, after all.

The moment Godric's fingers reached his wand, his horse started bucking around, causing his fingers to flick the wand and send it into the deep, muddy water.

„_Just my luck!_"

Struggling to keep himself on the horse and to calm it down, he drew the sword from around his waist hoping he could at least clear out the forest of Inferi that was closing around them just enough to reach the house.

He froze in his seat when he heard the familiar sound of wood breaking. One of the wooden boards in the dock snapped in half, and the left back leg of his horse fell into the hole. Immediately, the horse started kicking harder trying to set himself free, but it only caused him to fall down more. The Inferi took it as a sign to double their efforts, so they picked up their pace and started tugging harder.

Having slipped into an even more difficult position then before, Godric started swinging his sword like a madman. He managed to cut off some heads, but that did not prevent the bodies from continuing their work.

In that moment, the second board gave in to the pressure, so now half of the horse was under water, giving new opportunities and angles to the Inferi.

Godric's hair was now full of mud, his armor's weight was starting to pull him down and some cold bony hands were now scraping his face. He was forced to shut his eyes, yet he continued to swing around the sword, trying not to hit his own horse.

All of a sudden, he felt his horse moving up and regaining the relatively solid ground under it's hooves. He didn't wasted a moment trying to wipe his face, but instead spurred his horse forward, and literally jumped off it when they got on the little island.

Godric was not a fool. He knew the Inferi had backed off. And he had a pretty good theory why.

Dropping all thoughts aside, he took off the reins and the saddle off his horse and tied it to a provided wooden pole with a piece of rope. He tossed some hay into the feeding tub and reached out for the door of the house. While he was lifting the lever, he wiped his face with the other hand.

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><p>Well, I hope this wasn't boring for you. I kinda struggled with this. . I can't believe there are people who can write 1.000 words in 10 minutes. I need a whole hour just to write a paragraph!<p>

Well, anyway, I hope this wasn't too fast-paced for you. My mind is slow-paced, so I found all of this a bit rushed... But, also, sorry, if you find this too slow-paced. . "Slow and steady wins the race", no?

Also, if you were wondering about 'the lever' in the last sentence - by that I meant 'a lever of a latch'. A latch is 'a fastening for a door that has a bar that fits into a notch or slot, and is lifted by a lever or string from either side' (Wikitionary; Even has a pic of it! =) )

I also need to do some research on all things regarding horseback riding and taking care of horses, because I completely forgot that I'll be needing that in this fic. Horses slipped off my mind. -_-' If you know a good site regarding that, please give me the link.

Am I the only person who researches stuff for their fanfics? I noticed a lot of people miss little details, especially if they're doing a fic on something that differs from their culture. A lot of people put in unnecessary Japanese words/phrases, but don't know anything about the words (names of objects) that would actually be good to put in... Now I'm starting to nitpick.

Anyway, thank you for reading this fic. Thank you even more if you read this random notes/rants, too!

Also, please send me your words of support, because, although it is (at some point) fun to write this, it is also very difficult and I really don't know where I want to go with this, so I might end up dropping it or stall even more... (I feel like I'm blackmailing you! O.o) (Btw, just a pat on the shoulder won't do. -/- I'm that lazy.)

Sorry for the long intro & outro!


	3. Ch 2: As the Door Opens At the Beginning

Yes, yes, I know! It's been 86 years... And now I'm returning... I hope you don't hate me. I admit I did take sweet time uploading this. I haven't given up on this, just so you know!

And, you can maybe conclude, but this fic will contain (I hope careful) bending of canon. Canonbending. Well, it can't be avoided anyway, since none of us is the original author, right?

I've decided not to bother with some sort of Old English for character's dialogue, partly because I'm not a native English speaker, so I'm not sure how I'd fare with that...

Well, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and don't mind the gap this my almost 3 or 4 years of not updating created in the idea. I hope it's not too... well, like a punch in the face.

Also, please forgive any grammatical, spelling, style or any other errors that are probably very much there.

Special thanks to allofthesoulmates at Tumblr for rekindling my passion and inspiring me to sit tight and write this until 6 a.m. in the morning. You rule, girl! :D

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: As the Door Opens At the Beginning or The Hidden History of the World<strong>

Now, as much as I would like to tell you all about what happened when Godric entered the little house, I feel it is very important for us, my dear reader, to leave him be for now, and take a look at the very beginning. That way some things might become clearer once we get back where we left off.

For greater understanding of this story it is of utmost importance to understand how different the World has become in the years that divide us from our heroes. Or rather, the key is to know what it was like back in the day.

Before you start to cringe at the possibility of spending the next minutes of your life yawning at history which you do not consider relevant to your life, allow me to interfere by saying the following: I will try my best not to bury you under countless layers of dry, professional-sounding facts. Instead, I will see to it that you are introduced to the World in such size as it fits the lives of people who concern us.

Thus, allow me to tell you more about Godric and his family's position.

Long before Godric was born, and for quite a bit of his life, wizards and muggles lived in, let's say, coexistence. It wasn't very harmonious, since the muggles feared magic greatly, but it was life. Shocking, I know. But, as you may conclude, all of that was going to change at one point, or rather period, which does have something to with this story, but comes later on.

Nevertheless, muggles were perfectly aware of the wizards' existence, and their fear of magic - a product of ignorance, misunderstandings and some misuse of magic – did not lead to a great love between those two populations. However, as it usually happens when people fear something, but see they way to exploit it for their own benefit, the muggles never shied away from using the wizards and their magic as a means to achieve their goals. Wizards, being a minority in this common economy, never really thought twice about putting their talents in service to some rich muggle – for a fee. Of course, there were some who were against it, because they considered themselves to be superior to muggles, but their voices never reached higher than a murmur. Even wizards had to eat. And who in their right state of mind would even think of endangering the system that worked more-or-less alright for everybody, for centuries?

And rich kings and noblemen, ever hungry for more land and power, were at the very top of the list of potential customers. They were actually the best customers, partly because they were rich, partly because they had political influence. And everybody knew that you are known by the company you keep.

Those sorts of attitudes played out perfectly for the muggle kings, so they soon became the patrons of their wizards and were the sole authority to the wizarding education. If you had magic ability, and wanted to learn how to harness it, the only way for you to do it is to attend expensive Royal Academies of Magic, where the curriculums were entirely decided by His Majesty and His Royal Needs. You were required to swear The Unbreakable Oath, which pleads your complete and utter allegiance to the Crown, at the very beginning of your education – given that you had the money to pay for it, of course. In short, you could only learn what the King wanted you to learn under strict supervision of your teachers, the Council of The Wise – the greatest and most loyal wizards in the country; a position every wizard coveted greatly. And when you were done with your studies you could hope to be accepted in many great Magic Divisions, where you could use your magic in service to and with permission from the King. That was the best way to make it in life as a wizard, because if you worked hard enough, the King could also bestow you with great titles and riches – things that would assure you and your family a high position and respect among both wizards and muggles for ages to come, because both sides understood the language of money very well.

At the time of Godric's birth, the Gryffindors were exactly one such influential family. Godric's father, Sir Richard Gryffindor the Great, the Third Seat of The Council of The Wise, and General of the Arcane Knights, was the only heir of a long history of successful and loyal wizards, and he was probably that one person people used as an example of an accomplished man. He was a big, strict man with hair as the lion's mane, and he wanted nothing more then for his son to be as an accomplished man as he was.

Godric was in every view the very picture of his father, except for his merry nature, and his warm brown eyes which bore more resemblance to those of his mother.

Elizabeth was her name, and she was the only person who could soften the hard expression on Sir Richard's face. Great was their love from the very first moment they met, him like a proud lion and her as elegant as a swan. Sir Richard loved her gently, much more than anybody thought him capable. He always smiled when talking with her and his dark green eyes lightened up with joy. So, when Elizabeth got ill, all joy eventually faded from him.

Her illness was an odd thing. It started soon after she gave birth to Godric. The laird with his household never got to celebrate the birth of the first born son as long as they wished to, for Elizabeth's sickness casted gloom over their celebration. First it started barely noticeable, she kept forgetting things she was doing or planning to do. Eventually, she kept forgetting more and more, until in the end she forgot her own husband and son. No matter how many times Sir Richard reminded her of who he was, she would forget it in the next moment, and she kept asking him: "Who are you?"

For her illness no wizard or muggle knew a cure, so she sat in her room staring out the window.

Thus Sir Richard stopped smiling and Godric grew without a mother. Though, he would often visit her telling her imaginary stories he thought of while playing with his nannies or with his little wooden sword, and she would listen in awe to this little boy's cheery and loud talk, and would always ask him when he stopped to take a breath: "Who are you, little boy?"

His mother was the only dark spot in his otherwise cheerful youth. Godric was a nice boy, and his peers loved him a lot. He, like every other little boy, did have some issues with girls, though. He only got along with two of them, which is more than could be said for most boys, and even that was not the case sometimes: Helga and Rowena.

They were both of noble families like he was, but the two of them were very different. Rowena was thin and pale save for her rosy cheeks, and she had straight raven hair and icy blue eyes. Helga was a bit chubby, but only a bit, her hair was wavy and blonde, she had freckles and honey coloured eyes. She, much like himself, was cheerful, but was an easy target for bullies, so he often acted as her guard when they played. He saw her as his little sister, and made sure to always be there for her. It proved to be the best possible lesson in chivalry he could ever receive. With his mother sick and his "little sister" always being teased, he soon grew to abhor any kind of oppression or violence towards of any kind of people who couldn't fight for themselves.

The only person who he had regular squabbles with was Rowena – and only because she was smarter than him, and was not afraid to show it. He wasn't a really big fan of her ability to coolly smack him down with a simple word or a sentence, either.

It was one day, after the rain, when they had a similar argument during playtime by the road. The air of that day was as clear as glass. The grass was wet, and the ground and the road soft and muddy. One leaf was trembling on the branch of a big oak under which they were standing. They were probably arguing over something meaningless or maybe how to avoid getting mud on their clothes, which could earn them a beating from their parents. Helga was begging them to stop fighting, but eventually that one leaf dragged her attention away.

She was about to ask them again to stop fighting, when some yelling from up higher on the road pulled their attention away from each other much more successfully than Helga could.

Some village boys, covered in mud from the road up to their waists, were shouting and pushing another kid around, and throwing mud and stones at the kid. One threw cow dung straight into the kid's face, and all other boys cheered.

Godric frowned at them. When the kid slipped and fell and other boys started kicking and stomping like it was a piece of garbage and not a human being, Godric took up his wooden sword and ran towards the boys, hitting the first one he could reach. Helga and Rowena both gasped.

"Shame on you!" – Godric shouted – "How dare you hit a person like that!"

Luckily, the boys weren't very brave, so they ran as soon as the first one got hurt. As they were running away, one of them spat at the kid that was sitting in the mud trembling, and shouted: "Devil's child! Nobody has hair like that! Go to Hell from which you came!"

Godric waived his wooden sword at him threateningly, and the boy ran as fast as he could. When they were out of sight Rowena and Helga ran up to Godric.

"You're insane!"- Rowena said.

"I think that was very brave."- commented Helga.

Godric ignored both of them and turned to the kid who sat in the mud.

"It's alright."- he said reassuringly – "They won't be back. I chased them away."

The kid was trembling and struggling to clean the mud and dung off. The three friends could hear sobbing coming from the poor victim.

"It's alright, my lady." – said Godric to the kid, taking the other's hand in his – "Come with us. We'll get you cleaned up."

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><p>Whew... Well... I can only offer endless hope on my part, and definitely no promises. Because I tend to jinx myself when I do set the exact schedule. However, I do promise not to wait for another 3 or 4 years to pass before I update. I think I'm starting to slowly get a grasp on what I want to do with this.<p>

Anyway, I would love reviews. You can even drop them on anon on my Tumblr: no6isroyalblue. You can also send me your hype about the ship or just common "hi"s. :) I love it all.


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